Hair of the Bitch - A Twisted Suspense Thriller

by Jeff Menapace

  When the timer beeped, I dumped the contents of the white carton onto a plate, then bent and flicked a piece into Pele’s bowl. He approached, sniffed, and then walked away.

  “No, huh?” I said. “Just wanted to make sure I was still your slave?” I nudged him with my foot. He returned a swipe then disappeared.

  I settled into my sofa and finished watching The Omen as I ate.

  19

  It was midnight when Angela reappeared at my door. I had been dozing on and off and answered the door still dressed in my boxers and Stooges tee.

  Angela, however, was dressed in the type of camouflaged attire hunters wear—jacket, pants, even a cap. It was odd.

  I looked her up and down. “What’s with—?”

  “Hey, Moe!” she squeaked, right before slapping my face.

  I took a step back and rubbed my cheek. “What the hell?”

  She gestured towards my tee. “I love The Three Stooges.”

  I continued rubbing my cheek. “Maybe next time just tell me.”

  “You big pussy.” Then, spotting something to her left: “Speaking of pussy.”

  Pele made an appearance. He sauntered towards my ankles, yet kept a cautious distance from Angela.

  “I didn’t know you had a cat,” she said. “Why didn’t I see him last time?”

  “He was probably hiding. Cats can sense evil.”

  “Funny,” she said, squatting down and holding a hand out to him. “What’s his name?”

  “Pele.”

  She glanced up at me. “Pele? Like the soccer player?”

  “Yes and no.”

  She stopped trying to win Pele’s affection and stood. “I don’t get it.”

  “I named him after Jose ‘Pele’ Landi-Jons, my favorite fighter. Guy’s a legend in the sport of MMA. So much so that he was nicknamed ‘Pele’ in Brazil—after the soccer player.”

  “MMA?”

  “Mixed martial arts. Ever heard of the UFC?”

  “Is that the stuff where they fight in the cage?”

  “Yup.”

  “Huh.” She began wandering around my apartment, stopped in front of my free-standing heavy bag, and started tapping her fist against it. “Well it looked more like soccer to me.”

  “What did?”

  “What you did to the guy outside the bar the other night. The guy I paid. You head-butted him then kicked him around like a soccer ball. Didn’t look like any martial art I’ve ever seen.”

  “You watch too many movies. Street fights are ugly.”

  She kept tapping her fist on the bag. “So you used to be a fighter then?”

  “Me? No way. I just train whenever I’m not too lazy or hung-over.”

  “Why no way?”

  “I don’t have what it takes.”

  “You seem to handle yourself okay.”

  “I always hit first. No such thing as sportsmanship in a street fight. If a well-trained fighter got the jump on me, I’d be fucked.”

  “Alex got the jump on you. One of your hands was even tied. You came out okay.”

  “Your definition of okay must be vastly different than mine. And I’m guessing Alex wasn’t trained. I also had to use a fucking lamp and a baseball bat to beat him.”

  “To kill him,” she said with a smirk.

  I pretended her comment had no impact, merely continued with: “Like I said; no rules in a street fight—lamp, bat, whatever I gotta do.”

  “Hmmm…” she hummed in thought, fist back to tapping my heavy bag. Her daze then snapped and she spun and faced me. “So you ready to go?”

  “Go where?”

  She did a sexy pirouette in her fatigues and said: “Hunting.”

  PART FIVE

  First Gig

  20

  I was wearing jeans and a grey sweatshirt as per Angela’s request. Something plain; something that didn’t stand out, she’d said. We were in her car, she was driving, and something told me we wouldn’t be hunting animals. Of course this was fine by me; I could never hurt an animal. Unfortunately, that left an alternative prey I shuddered to consider.

  “What’s going on? You promised no more surprises,” I said.

  “Did I?”

  “Angela, don’t fuck around.”

  “So serious,” she said.

  I glared at her profile.

  “I told you; we’re going hunting,” she said.

  I looked out my window. The safety of the suburbs was now a good twenty or so miles behind us. Ahead, we were entering an area of the city I would hesitate to wander through in the morning. For every functional building passed, a graffitied square of brick and decay was its neighbor. The street lamps seemed to operate in a similar pattern: one lit, one dead, one lit…

  “What the hell would we hunt around here? Rats?”

  She didn’t answer, just continued driving. I looked out my window again. The trash that littered the ground had changed. Candy wrappers, cigarette butts, and beer cans were now shopping carts, tires, and old appliances.

  We drove on for another couple of minutes. Up until now, the presence of people had been pretty sparse, but as we approached the upcoming strip I noticed a greater congestion of men and women lining the curb. It was then that Angela banked left into an alley, away from onlookers. She stopped, and we sat idling.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “This…this is not smart. We’re ducks here.”

  She leaned in close, spoke fast but concise. “We’re going to pick someone up. I want you to tell her that I’m your girlfriend and that I said you could have a threesome for your birthday. If she sees me, she should have no problem getting into the car.”

  “We’re picking up a prostitute?”

  Angela’s reply was a quick shift into reverse and backing out of the alley onto the main strip again. She rolled up to a cluster of women, about four in total.

  “Angela, answer my question,” I said.

  “Don’t be difficult, Calvin.” She slowed to a stop. “I’m doing you a favor by helping you with this one.”

  “Helping me with what? What are—?”

  She hit the horn, cutting me off. One of the four women approached. She stayed a cautious distance from the car, but close enough to bend forward and get a look through my window. In a different world she might have been pretty—her vocation looked as if it had tacked on a weathered ten to what I guessed was a nineteen or twenty year-old life. Still, she was by no means unattractive; I’d slept with lesser catches during past nights of shitfacedness.

  I glanced over at Angela. Through clenched teeth she said: “Do it.”

  I rolled the window down, tried to smile as I said hello.

  “You want something, baby?” she asked.

  My tongue felt huge and in the way. “My girlfriend and I were wondering if you wanted to hang out.”

  She bent further at the waist, looking past me to see who was driving.

  “You cops?” she asked.

  “No, no,” I said quickly, trying to follow it with a friendly chuckle, only to have it sputter out like the nervous offerings of a man caught cheating at a card-table full of guns.

  “What’d you have in mind?” she said.

  I cleared my throat; it felt like the fucking Sahara. “It’s my birthday…my girl told me I could have a threesome.”

  The girl looked past me again, studying Angela.

  Angela leaned over my lap towards the open window, flashed a big smile. “Trust me, I’m not overly wild about the idea to begin with,” she said. “But I promised him.” She ended with a shrug and another smile.

  “It’s gonna cost,” the prostitute said.

  “Not a problem,” Angela said.

  I watched the prostitute’s shoulders drop. Sold.

  Angela hit the automatic locks for the back door. “Climb on in.”

  21

  The drive was quiet. I certainly didn’t say much. Even if Angela and I were a couple planning on having a threesome for my birthday, small ta
lk with a prostitute was likely as uncomfortable for them as their trade itself.

  She told us her name was Stephanie. A girl-next-door kind of name. I found that curious. Could it have actually been her real name? I can remember a night when a stripper slapped a friend of mine for daring to ask Candy or Cocoa or whatever she called herself her real name. My buddy had been just hammered enough to forget strip club etiquette. He’d insisted—sadly, like many men do—that this stripper actually liked him. He wanted to get to know the real her, find out her real name. A slap and a fuck you was his reply for bringing the real world inside those dark doors that parodied pride and coddled lust. And that was only a stripper. A prostitute? I imagine you’d get a knife in your balls for daring to dig. The real world had no place poking its nose around during work hours—and likely thereafter.

  (Look at you talking about the real world.)

  You don’t know any more than I do, so shut up.

  (Don’t I?)

  We’re the same person.

  (And yet I’ve been having you scratching your head these past few days. How does that work I wonder?)

  Maybe I’m crazy.

  (Ah yes—some kind of dual personality thing; the last refuge for desperate writers in need of a twist.)

  I don’t know what to do. I really do need help.

  (Sorry—doesn’t work that way.)

  * * *

  Angela’s vast foyer. The three of us stood in a triangle. I was not aware of my expression, but knew it had to be more like that of a guy holding in a tidal wave of a piss than one about to bed down with two women.

  Stephanie confirmed this when she said: “You look nervous. You nervous, sweetie?”

  I think I smiled, think I nodded. Whatever I did, it was enough for Angela to get concerned and take matters into her own hands. She approached Stephanie, got in close, said, “He’ll come around,” and then began tracing her finger over Stephanie’s lips. “I think we may need to give him something to get him going first.”

  They started to kiss. I watched Angela’s hands slide down Stephanie’s body, tracing her curves, cupping her ass, letting her fingers glide towards the front, Angela’s lips moving from Stephanie’s mouth to her neck, Stephanie arching her head back, seemingly enjoying it, moaning as Angela’s hand slid upward, circling the erect nipple with her fingertips, Stephanie’s moans graduating to longing exhales, Angela running her hand back down towards Stephanie’s ass…and then a sudden jerking movement, Stephanie crying out, pushing off, frowning, furiously rubbing a spot on her ass, demanding to know what had just happened.

  And Angela said nothing. Only stared back, waiting.

  Stephanie’s eyes rolled back, her body crumpling to the floor an instant later. Angela bent and checked her pulse. Satisfied, she then stood and looked at me. If my face appeared lost before, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it looked like now.

  When Angela smirked and started twirling a small syringe between her fingers, I got it.

  22

  “You don’t expect me to carry her upstairs do you?” Angela said.

  I didn’t think, only reacted.

  (Like watching a movie, isn’t it?)

  Stephanie was relatively light in my arms, making the trek upstairs bearable. I reached the top of the landing and banked right towards the infamous room.

  “No,” Angela called out behind me, “we’re not going in there.”

  I shifted Stephanie in my arms and looked over my shoulder. “Where then?”

  “Left. Last room at the end of the hall.”

  I followed her directions and found the room. The door was closed. Several locks were beneath the handle. One was a padlock. Angela, who was following close behind, nudged me to one side and went to work on the locks with a ring of keys like something a security guard might carry.

  Stephanie was starting to feel heavy. As Angela finished with the last lock, I wondered if putting Stephanie down would be worth having to go inside the room and see—

  Nothing.

  The room was the antithesis of everything else in the house—at least everything I had seen up until now. It looked like one of those white rooms they stuck crazies in. No furniture, no rugs, not even a window. Just white and more white.

  “Put her down anywhere,” Angela said. “She should be out for at least another hour.”

  I set Stephanie down in the middle of the room. Angela turned to leave.

  “We’re just gonna leave her here?” I asked.

  “It’s fine. Come on, I need to get you fitted.”

  “Fitted?”

  * * *

  We entered the room we fucked in the other night. Angela opened up a walk-in closet bigger than my apartment. She began sliding hangers and opening drawers. Each time, I got a brief glimpse of what hung on those hangers, what occupied those drawers.

  “You want me to wear one of those ridiculous outfits,” I said. “Like the freak who came at me with the bat.”

  “I take it you didn’t approve of his fashion sense?”

  I said nothing.

  “Fine—you can play it conservative, but I will cover your face. I also suggest you change your clothes. You don’t want to get them messy.”

  Messy.

  She tossed me a pair of denim overalls like the kind farmers wear.

  “Will those be okay, Mr. Versace?” she said.

  I fanned the overalls out and held them up against my body. I flashed on the film Motel Hell with a chainsaw-wielding Rory Calhoun running around in overalls while wearing a severed pig’s head.

  Oh please don’t make me wear a severed pig’s head.

  “Come over here and pick out a mask,” she said.

  I marveled at how blasé she was about the whole process, as if she was an employee showing me items in a department store.

  (And you’re just letting it happen…watching that movie.)

  I approached the dresser drawer she had opened and looked inside. There were five masks all in a row. Two were all black with stitches and zippers all over the place, similar to the one the freak wore; one was a black hood similar to the executioner’s hood I saw in one of her videos; one was a white ski mask that looked to be made out of leather; and the last one was, I shit you not, a plastic Elmer Fudd mask. I picked Elmer up.

  “Anyone ever choose this one?” I asked.

  She snatched it from me and placed it back in the drawer.

  “Well what’s it there for then?” I said.

  “Are you going to choose or am I?”

  I picked up the white leather ski mask.

  “Perfect—that’ll provide good contrast with her blood,” she said, still as blasé as they come.

  Her blood.

  (Just watching that movie—popcorn and all.)

  Angela opened another drawer on the dresser. She removed something and handed it to me. It was a box-cutter.

  “A box-cutter? What am I opening?”

  “Stephanie. I won’t let you out until she’s dead.”

  Her words were an ice blast. Or maybe it was the cavalier way she spoke them; the way she’d been speaking. Either way, it fucking sucked. Either way, I was fucked. Either way, it fucking sucked that I was fucked.

  “Angela,” I said, holding the box-cutter in front of her, “it’ll take forever if I use this.” I fingered the small thin blade. “This thing can’t be more than two inches.”

  “That’s the idea. The client doesn’t want it to be quick.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Am I really going through with this?

  (Disassociation.)

  What?

  (Like watching a movie about yourself. You might question character judgment throughout, and you might yell at the screen whenever that character does something stupid—very apt here—but in the end all you can really do is sit back and watch. Sorry, CHOOSE to watch.)

  So what do I do?

  (Well, wouldn’t “living in the now”—as you so longingly aspire—be som
ething you should finally man up and do? Give the film an alternate ending?)

  Okay yeah, yeah. How though?

  (I don’t know. Maybe you need to get in the game for a little bit first. Get sacked a few times. This isn’t a zero to sixty thing after all.)

  You telling me to go through with this!?

  (Weren’t you going to anyway?)

  No!

  (Sure as hell seems like it so far. And you know what’s saddest of all?)

  What?

  (Part of you is doing it for her.)

  Well no shit.

  (You know what I mean.)

  Then I won’t do it.

  (Yes you will. It’ll all be over before you even realize. Someone else has the remote.)

  No.

  (Why not? Drinking, street-fighting, romanticizing about how dark and enigmatic you are? It hasn’t done shit your whole pathetic life. Why not get in the game and take a few REAL hits, hot shot? Maybe it’ll finally man you the fuck up, allow you to make alternate endings for future films. Present you with a big red button to press so you can nuke Fantasy World into fucking orbit.)

  Stop talking in metaphors!

  “Still with me?” Angela asked.

  I blinked and nodded. “You’re going to film this I assume?”

  “Of course.”

  “I didn’t see any cameras. There were no cameras in the room.”

  “There are cameras. Here.” She handed me her ring of keys along with a small tube of something. “Those are the keys and smelling salts. Get in there, wake her up, and then go to work. Don’t fuck this up, Calvin; I’ve been good to you thus far.”

  “If you wanted to be good to me, you’d destroy the tape.”

  “If I destroyed that tape, I would never hear from you again. You might even end up growing a conscience and try to turn me in.”

  “I wouldn’t turn you in.”

  “Be that as it may…” She took me by the shoulders, spun me around, and marched me out of the closet. “I’ll be watching from in here,” she said.